Choosing and Using an HMO (Bloomberg Personal Bookshelf) [Abridged] [Audio Cassette]

Ellyn Spragins (Author, Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998 | Series: Bloomberg Personal Bookshelf

The number one force driving most health maintenance organizations in the market today is profit, not quality. That's why HMOs are expanding as rapidly as they can. That's why multimillion dollar mergers are grabbing headlines. And that's why it's absolutely critical that consumers begin demanding superior quality from their HMOs. Ellyn Spragins had produced the first no-nonsense guide to selecting and using an HMO in this rapidly changing and confusing environment. This book cuts through HMO marketing hype, giving you the tools professionals use to choose the best health plans. You will learn how to profile your family's health needs and match them to a health plan's strengths. You'll discover how to pick the best doctor, when to go outside a network, and how to get a consultation with a specialist. You'll save time, money, and a lot of aggravation. Choosing and Using an HMO describes the concrete steps you should take to get the highest quality care. Packed with resources and lists of HMOs to seek out - or to avoid - this easy-to-use book demystifies the increasingly complex world of health care.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Spragins expands her award-winning Newsweek story, "America's Best HMOs," with this excellent work designed to give people easy methods for finding high-quality managed healthcare plans, specifically health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and to help high-quality care thrive. Across the country, the almost daily press announcements of new fill-in-the-blank HMOs, especially those targeted to the huge market of Medicare beneficiaries, understandably confuse consumers with the dizzying array of choices presented by this complex healthcare option. Topics succinctly presented cover the best HMOs in each state, the 11 leading indicators of excellence, why Medicare HMOs are different and how to pick one, where to find yardsticks of quality, and how to challenge a medical decision and get an HMO to cover what a consumer needs. The intent here is to help consumers reward those excellent plans by migrating to them, thus supporting the future of top-notch healthcare. Spragins has done a remarkable job of translating for lay listeners highly specialized material more likely to be found in professional trade journals, but the numerous sources of available key quality indicators of HMOs would be far easier for consumers to access if their URLs were included. With the continuing growth in managed-care health plans, all public libraries are encouraged to offer this resource, along with its corresponding hard copy.ADale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Don't join an HMO without this book. Ellyn Spragins is the first word on picking your HMO and getting it to perform for you. -- Jane Bryant Quinn, Newsweek --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: DH Audio; Abridged edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886464803
• ISBN-13: 978-0886464806
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,386,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ellyn Spragins leads Letters To My Younger Self Seminars and Workshops around the world for women's leadership networks and leadership development programs. She has presented at Microsoft, Genentch, Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson and many other corporations. Her books, speeches, seminars and products inspire women to discover their inner wisdom and share it with each other.

She is the author of What I Know Now About Success, published in the spring of 2010 and If I'd Known Then: Women In Their 20s and 30s Write Letters to Their Younger Selves, published by Da Capo Press in May 2008. Previously she authored What I Know Now: Letters To My Younger Self, a New York Times bestseller and Books For A Better Life finalist, published in April 2006.

Previously she was a columnist at The New York Times, writing Love & Money for the Sunday business section, and Editor-At-Large at Fortune Small Business. She also was Vice President of Editorial Development at Oxygen Media and a contributing editor to Newsweek. While at Newsweek, she won the National Press Club's Consumer Journalism Award in 1997 and the Clarion Award in 1998.

Spragins has been an editor at Smart Money, BusinessWeek and Inc., and a reporter at Forbes. Her articles have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Working Woman, Bloomberg Personal, Worth, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Ladies Home Journal and Town & Country. She has also made numerous television and radio appearances.

Spragins graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in English and economics from Barnard College, which awarded her the Estelle M. Allison Prize for Excellence in Literature. She lives with her husband, John Witty, and two children in Pennington, New Jersey.
Learn more at www.letterstomyyoungerself.com.